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Before 1990, the word « manga » was only known by two distinct relatively small groups : one was composed of the pioneers of Franco-Japanese exchanges, be they French people in Japan or French-loving Japanese, and the other by young French otaku that appeared in the middle of the '80s.

This second group had access to manga through the American circuit, browsing in specialized libraries to find American versions of manga. From then on, French editors were content with publishing works that had already been translated on the other side of the Atlantic, offering strongly Americanized manga (for example through their anglicized onomatopoeias) to French readers. Since manga came to France through the American market, it was natural that the fans used a masculine version of the term. From « le » comic to « le » manga, there was only one step...
At the beginning of the '90s, French television channels seized the word « manga » and generalized its masculine use. Some animators of kids' program went to the point of using a plural form of the word, « mangas », joining « comics » in a superfluous and grammatically incorrect pronunciation, both in Japanese and French.

The first group had a different point of view. It didn't really care about American trends and comics since it could appreciate manga in its original context and read it in Japanese. These pioneers of direct relations (be they editorial, creative or romantic) between France and Japan were naturally talking of « la » manga, like friendly French-loving Japanese people speaking of « la » BD. Among them were Pierre-Alain Szigeti, editor at Morning, and most of the French authors that came to Japan and were published by Kodansha in the '90s...

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